


Flirting with the Detective

by BarPurple



Series: Metal Fish [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 2018, Belle - Freeform, F/M, First Round, Pre-Relationship, Rumbelle Showdown, Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold as Detective Weaver
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-08 14:45:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14696352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: Weaver is on desk duty after being shot, and he is not happy, until someone brightens his day.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First Round Entry for Rumbelle Prompt Showdown 2018 under the pen name Metal Fish for the Prompts: Detective Weaver meets Belle; code; dagger eyes

“Come on Captain! I’m fine.”

She took a beat to calm herself, losing her temper with Weaver never got her anywhere.

“Need I remind you, you were shot only a week ago? You know the rules, desk duty until you are declared fit, which considering the medical report will be at least a month.”

Weaver rolled his eyes, “That’s just the hospital covering their arse because I signed myself out.”

Captain Herd suspected as much, but wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Desk duty Weaver. If I catch you trying to do any legwork I’ll handcuff you to your desk.”

Some of her detectives would have made a lewd comment, but Weaver just rolled his eyes again, and gave her a mocking salute as he left her office. He didn’t even slam the door. Her assistant came in a moment later, must have been waiting until Weaver was clear.

“He took that well.”

Herd snorted; “You’ve not been here long. Where did he go?”

“Erm, locker room I think.”

“Give maintenance a heads up. There’ll be some dented doors for them to deal with by the end of the day.”

-o0o-

“You tell me that one more time, Rogers and I will take great pleasure in twisting your bollocks off.”

Even the jolly natured Rogers took the hint at that. He backed off and headed out with his temporary partner. Weaver pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. The really annoying thing was that the rookie was right, this was for his own good. He’d pulled a couple of stitches when he’d thumped his locker after the captain put him on desk duty, and he wasn’t healing as fast as he used too. Getting old Weaver, got to be more careful. Still he was doing his best to turn this damned situation to his advantage; so easy to encourage a bit of information out of people when you were filling out their paperwork. 

He growled as he looked at the next case; domestic dispute; this was going to be dismal and dull.

“Ms Belle French.”

The woman who strolled up from the bullpen wasn’t what he was used to dealing with. She was neat, tidy and confident; she walked like a lady, a lady who had earned her place in the world through hard work. Weaver found himself standing to great her, something he never did.

“Detective Weaver.”

She sat down, smoothing her skirt over her thighs as she crossed her legs, and placed a thick folder on the corner of his desk. He wasn’t used to this. He took a moment to stare at her. Normally his eye roving over a suspect would be enough to make them squirm, but she ignored him.

“Are you going to stand for our entire interview, Detective Weaver?”

He eased himself into his chair, and made a show of flicking over the paperwork he had on her.

“So, Ms French. You destroyed your fiancé’s car.”

“No. I took half of the car, the half that I had paid for. Nothing was damaged, and I am holding half of said car until my ex-fiancé settles the debt he owes me.”

Weaver had seen the photos, she had taken half of the car; literally; the driver’s side wing, passenger’s side tail panel, head and tail lights from those sides; seats, interior trim, and exactly half of the engine. He had to admire the way that she had striped the car asymmetrically. There was no way her fiancé, sorry ex-fiancé, could miss what she had done. She hadn’t endangered his life, because there was no way he could have driven the car in that state.

She flicked open the file she had brought with her; “I have the records to show that I paid for half of that car. I also have photographic evidence that the parts are safe in storage. The records I have here also show that the sorry excuse for a man I was engaged to owes me three months rent on what was our home. The house he is still living in because I was charitable after finding him in what was our bed with both of his assistants.”

Weaver found himself liking this woman. He had seen every variety of wronged ex-partners in his time, but this Belle French was something else. He wondered how badly her ex had squirmed when he’d been caught? Considering the dagger-eyes she was giving the photos of his car, Weaver doubted he’d been able to continue screwing his assistants, at least not right at that moment. He was already working out how he could screw her ex over, because the idiot deserved it, seriously what person got engaged to this goddess and then screwed around? 

He realised he’d been almost smiling at her, and raked his hand through his hair.

“Okay, so, erm, Mr Gary Gaston, is looking to charge you with destruction of property, and trespass. However, from the information you have presented today, he ain’t gonna stand a hope in hell.”

Miss French relaxed a little, she’d been more worried about this than she’d let on. He flipped through his paperwork and realized that he didn’t have the right form.

“Excuse me a moment, Miss French.”

What happened next was totally his own fault. He’d set up the little ‘code’ with Johnson during the first few days of his enforced desk duty, when he’d realised that his slowly healing gunshot was going to make it difficult to restrain a suspect should the need arise. So, it shouldn’t have surprised him to return to his desk and find that Johnson had handcuffed Miss French to it. Normally, the suspect would be panicked and start protesting their innocence, usually babbling some vital detail in the process.

Miss Belle French was not panicking. She smirked at him and rattled the cuffs.

“Oh, fu.., pity’s sake. Johnson, you moron, I’d actually just forgotten a form!”

A red-faced Johnson hurried over and unlocked Miss French with an apology. She accepted with a gracious smile, to be honest it looked as if she was trying not to laugh.

“For a moment there I thought you’d decided to charge me after all.”

He shook his head; “Ah, no just a bit of a misunderstanding,” – he absent-mindedly rubbed as his side, the bullet wound was itchy more than anything else now, - “Do have one further question, where did you learn to take apart a 80’s Mustang?”

He honestly didn’t think that she was running a chop-shop, although she could with skill she’d demonstrated on her idiot ex’s Mustang. 

She tilted her head slightly and looked him over; “I might be willing to tell you that story,” – she rubbed at her wrist, - “I think a cup of coffee might be in order, to make up for my brief wrongful imprisonment.”

He chuckled; “I think that is a sensible precaution, after all I wouldn’t want you sneaking in to the precinct and striping my desk.”

Her eyes roved over him and she briefly bit her bottom lip, “Oh I could come up with something better to strip than your desk Detective.”

He had no doubt of that at all, she gave him an easy shrug; “I took the whole day off for this, so what time is your break?”

Weaver didn’t bother looking at his watch, “Right now, there’s a nice little diner down the street.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Detective Weaver rose to his feet and threw his coat on while Belle tucked her paperwork back into her purse. Captain Herd yelled out; “Where the hell are you going Weaver?”

He turned on the spot and grinned at her; “I’m going for lunch Captain. I promise, no legwork other than what it will take me to get to the diner.”

He turned back to Belle and gestured toward the door. They walked out side by side, and for some reason it felt natural to place his hand on the same of her back.


	2. Chapter 2

Belle smiled a thank you as Weaver set down their cups of coffee. He’d insisted on paying, and she’d noticed that the waiter had taken a moment to have a quiet word with him. His only response had been a tight nod, which made her wonder if he’d just received some information about a crime. She shook the thought away as she took a sip of coffee, feeling a little foolish for letting her imagination run wild.

“So, Miss French, how did you come by your impressive automotive skills?”

“Please call me Belle.”

He squirmed in his seat and fiddled with the handle of his cup; “Erm I’d like too, but I don’t use my first name, so I can’t return the favour.”

There was a story there, but she could tell that pressing him would only cause him to withdraw, so she just shrugged; “I’m happy to call you Weaver if that’s alright.”

He visibly relaxed; “Aye, that’ll be fine, Belle.”

She leaned back in her seat; “About the car, my dad restored a classic Mustang when I was a kid. I helped.”

Weaver chuckled; “Can’t beat hands on experience. Did your dad help you with Mr Gaston’s car?”

Belle’s smile faded; “No, he died three years ago.”

He reached for her hand and briefly covered it with his own; “I’m sorry, bet he would have been impressed with the job you did.”

Her smile returned in full force; “Oh yes, then again had he still been with us he would have questioned my engagement long before it got to the point of stripping a car down.”

Weaver cocked his head to one side, a slight frown creasing his brow; “You don’t strike me as a bad judge of character, what happened with your ex?”

“I met Gary not long after my dad died, I was adrift, and he was charming in a bold brash way,” – she snorted, - “When we started dating he insisted on going by his surname, said we were retelling Beauty and the Beast the way it should have ended.”

Weaver hadn’t seen Beauty and the Beast, but Tilly had raved about the life action film for weeks. She’d bragged that she’d seen it four times in one day, and more surprisingly she’d bought a ticket each time. Thanks to Tilly’s obsession he knew a fair bit about the plot and characters.

“He did realise that Gaston is the bad guy of the story?”

“I don’t think so, should have been a warning, but I thought it was kinda sweet at first. As time went on our paths diverged, I wanted to focus on my career and he wanted to screw other women.”

“He’d cheated on your before?”

Belle toyed with a sugar packet; “I had my suspicions. I think the more he got away with it the more blatant he became. Never thought he’d think he could get away with a threesome in our bed, but…”

She trailed off as the waiter strolled by and refilled their cups. He lingered until Weaver rolled his eyes and said; “Bugger off Jeff.”

The waiter grinned and dropped two menus on to the table; “It’s nearly lunchtime Weaver, not fair to make the lady go hungry just because you live on coffee and crime.”

He skipped out of reach as Weaver went to playfully slap him with the menu.

“Sorry about Jeff, he’s odd, but okay,” – He nodded at the menu, - “Do you want to eat? The burgers here are great.”

It looked as if she was going to refuse, but then a hard look flashed over her face and she picked up the menu; “Yeah, it’s been ages since I had a good burger.”

Weaver recognized that look, that rat bastard Gaston had put some idea into her head that she needed to watch her weight. He was liking this guy less by the minute, and to be fair he’d not had a high opinion of him to start with.

He smiled at Belle; “How about you order us burgers, Jeff knows how I like mine. I just need to visit the gents.”

“I can do that.”

He caught Jeff’s eye as he headed towards the restrooms and sent him over to take their order, making sure that he would add it to his tab. Once he was out of sight of Belle he pulled his phone from his pocket. This Gaston was going to suffer a world of inconvenience, but first he needed to dig up some dirt, and no one was better at that than Tilly.

Tilly’s number was disconnected again. What had she traded the phone for this time? Weaver debated calling Rogers and getting him to make a few discreet enquires into Gaston. He snorted to himself, Rogers wasn’t a bad detective, but he was about as subtle as a wreaking ball, best to wait until he saw Tilly.

He walked back to the table and found Belle gazing out of the window. She didn’t look at him as he sat back down, but she did lean across the table and nodded out of the window.

“The woman in blue, what do you think she’s up too?”

Weaver glanced out of the window worried that his burger was going to end up cold as he dealt with some crime. Instead of some bugger breaking the law he spotted Miss Ludlow furiously shaking her head and scribbling in her notebook as she scowled at a group of kids harmlessly skate boarding. He swore and ducked his head as he hissed; “Stop staring at her, please.”

Belle tore her eyes away from the busybody and mimicked Weaver by sinking down it to her seat.

“I’m guessing she’s not a criminal.” She whispered.

“Criminal waste of police time. Head of the local neighbourhood watch. She’s convinced that the precinct needs to be focused on minor misdemeanours, that we waste too much time on, and I quote, headline grabbing sensationalism.”

Belle gave him an incredulous look as she wrapped her head around that.

“She does realise that solving murders is vitally important? I mean don’t get me wrong the world would be a better place if people used their turn-signal and didn’t litter, but there are priorities.”

They were both giggling as Jeff brought their food over. He raised an eyebrow at them but left with nothing more than an ‘Enjoy your meals’. Weaver risked a glance out of the window and sighed in relief as he saw a street free of busybodies. His eyes widen in panic as he turned back to his meal and saw the red bottle in Belle’s hand.

“No, hang on! That’s not ketchup, that’s Noel’s special chilli sauce.”

Belle turned the bottle to show him the label; “I know.”

He fussed with his napkin; “It catches a lot of folk out.”

She raised her eyebrows as if to say how bad can it be? He shrugged; “If you want to spend your meal sweating and gasping go ahead.”

She considered the chilli sauce for a second and then deliberately put it back on to the table; “I’m sure there are better ways to get into that state,” – she looked right at him and said innocently, - “Would you happen to know of any Weaver?”

He smirked; “I’m sure I could think of a few Belle.”

She bit her bottom lip and hummed; “I bet you can.”

 

On the other side of the diner Noel nudged Jeff; “What’s going on with Weaver?”

Jeff hummed as he sorted cutlery; “What do you mean?”

Noel sniffed; “He’s smiling, laughing and I’m pretty sure that lady and him are flirting.”

“How can you tell they’re flirting? They were talking about condiments.”

Noel tutted; “What have I told you about lip-reading the customers? Anyway, condiments or not I know bedroom eyes when I see them.”

Noel headed back into the kitchen and Jeff took a look at Weaver’s table. There was no way the grumpiest detective in Hyperion Heights was making bedroom eyes, the man only had two settings; angry and angrier. The lady made some comment and Jeff almost dropped the cutlery caddy. Holy Hell! Apparently, Weaver did have another setting, who would have guessed?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rosefairy15 said:  
> Flirting with the detective!verse: Weaver gets Tilly to dig up dirt on Gaston. Turns out there's so much more than either expected.

“No need to make a big deal out of it Captain … Yeah right … Bye.”

Weaver ended the call. Belle wound her hands around his arm and smiled; “So, back to your place?”

After some serious flirting over lunch, including some very arousing footsie, he’d been hoping for Belle’s number. He had it on her paperwork, but he wouldn’t use it to call her for a date unless she offered it with that purpose in mind.

She’d surprised him by asking if he could play hooky for the afternoon. There was only paperwork on his desk and it could wait. He called the Captain to make sure that she didn’t think he was chasing crooks, if she thought that she’d have no problem tracking him down and reading him the riot act. Nothing was going to interrupt this delightful afternoon with Belle.

“I don’t normally do this sort of thing.”

She sounded nervous, so he made a joke; “What? Walk down the street? Really? You’re doing very well then.”

She giggled and pinched his arm; “You know what I’m talking about.”

“Aye I do, and this isn’t the sort of this I do either.”

It had been a long while since Weaver had felt desire for anyone, even longer since he’d acted on that desire, and he’d never felt such an instant attraction for anyone as he did for Belle. It was exhilarating, and just a wee bit terrifying. He’d say it was almost magically, but he didn’t believe in magic, but that wasn’t going to stop him enjoying whatever this was.

He led Belle into his apartment and closed the door. The atmosphere between them was thick with desire. Part of him wanted to pounce on Belle, to get this thing between them moving, but he waited, wanting her to make the next move. After a brief look around the hall, she turned slowly to face him. The little smile on her lips made his throat go dry. She stepped in close and place a hand on his chest, urging him backwards until he bumped against the wall. He caught her hips and pulled her in close as her fingers toyed with the bare skin at his open collar.

A rattle from the kitchen stopped him before he could kiss her. He groaned and called out; “Tilly!”

“What’s taking you so long Weaver? I’ve got news for you!”

Belle tilted her head to one side and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Sorry sweetheart, my regular housebreaker.”

She appeared amused by the interruption and took his hand as he strolled into the kitchen. Tilly was sat cross legged on the counter eating marmalade from the jar with a spoon. She looked up at the pair of them and broke into a wide grin.

“Oh, look at that. This is brilliant. Your story always starts with a deal doesn't it?.”

Weaver pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed; “More sense and less riddles please Tilly.”

He waved Belle to a chair and crossed to the fridge to grab some drinks. Belle smiled a thank you for the iced tea he handed her. Her eyes darted to Tilly and he remembered his manners.

“Belle this is Tilly, Tilly this is Miss Belle French.”

Tilly waved the spoon as a hello and Weaver winced as a blob of marmalade hit the floor. Before he could tell her off, Tilly dropped a bombshell.

“I know who she is, she’s currently in possession of the cocaine that Gary Gaston brought into town four days ago.”

Belle spluttered on her iced tea; “I beg your pardon!”

Tilly shrugged and focused on scrapping another spoonful of marmalade from the jar; “You didn’t know about them, but they’re in the door panel of the Mustang. Nice job on that car by the way.”

Weaver’s instinct told him Belle had no idea what Tilly was talking about. Rogers would tell him that he needed to take this to the station, but Weaver was even less inclined than normal to follow procedure. He dropped into the chair next to Belle and took her hand; “I’ll sort this out, okay?”

Belle looked shell-shocked but gave him a tight nod. He kept hold of her hand as he looked at Tilly; “Okay, you, from the start.”


End file.
